Erasmus+ Project

GROWING UP WITH VALUES FROM STORYTELLING

We have witnessed changes in our school in the past few years. The family model, in many cases, is not the same and its responsabilities are now shared with the school. Our children grow up in a different world, focused on technologies and extracurricular activities, leaving little time for what was essential to them: playing. Children and families do not have the time to be together and share the process of growing up. This explains the problems in social and school development and the lack of values among pupils.

Values education, once in the hands of parents, is now a responsibility of the school. This project aims to work with values such as sharing, solidarity, happiness, peace, respect, freedom, family, honesty, citizenship, among others. Also, the use of significant words (please, excuse me, thank you, good morning, sorry…) contributes to the change of this school and social framework. This is only possible through constant and persistent work, from an early age.

It’s important to explain to pupils that these values are not out of fashion. We want healthy and well-educated
children, crucial for the construction of a well structured society. The paradigm shift is only possible if we open up learning, provide new experiences, and promote, along with logical reasoning, mastery of mother and foreign languages and digital technologies, exploration of arts, sports, health, and contact with nature. Thus, the pupils’ horizons become broader and they are motivated toward attitudes compatible with responsible and conscious citizenship. Working with values at school is a great need, combined with the contribution of families to make this action more effective. Children will grow up with balance and will not be deprived of interaction with their peers.

The use of stories as a pedagogical strategy will allow the development of necessary learnings for the pupils, starting from imagination and establishing parallelism between fiction and real concepts. Step by step, children will develop their moral sense.

The activities of the project will have, as a starting point, previously selected children stories that refer to universal values. In each month, a story will be associated with a value, and consequently a theme. The stories, values, and themes, will be intertwined with the seasons or festivities common to partner countries. This will be the motto for work planning.

In order to make this project stronger, more coherent and effective, with meaningful and long lasting learnings, we foresee the involvement of the educational community, highlighting the fundamental role of families and also directing some of the activities to them. This will lead to bigger accountability of all the actors.

Objectives

A. Increasing pupils’ self-knowledge so that they are able to recognize their own feelings, emotions, desires;

B. Providing children with tools for getting to know and respect their peers;

C. Helping children value what they own and discussing the issues of “owning” in contemporary society (consumerism);

D. Working on issues such as loss, frustration, change, discrimination, prejudice, exclusion, and conflict situations;

E. Strengthening pupils’ self-esteem;

F. Developing pupils’ social and communication skills;

G. Increasing pupils’ literacy and interest in reading and writing through children literature;

H. Raising human, upright and just children, citizens of a better future;

I. Increasing the engagement of parents/families in school life;

J. Developing the participating organization’s capacity of operating at a transnational level;

K. Exchanging ideas and sharing educational methodologies/practices/tools with partner teachers/staff.

With the support of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.